


Getting By

by Goodluckdetective (scorpiontales)



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Depression, Domestic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Living Together, M/M, Post-Season/Series 13
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-24
Updated: 2017-03-24
Packaged: 2018-10-09 21:24:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10422063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorpiontales/pseuds/Goodluckdetective
Summary: They both have bad days.How they get through them is what matters.





	

After the war, after Epsilon, they both have bad days.

 

Wash’s bad days are easy to recognize, his patterns long establish. He wakes up far too early, his hands shake, and the entire day he’s both incredibly irritated and too worn out to do anything. Tucker knows how to handle these days, used to them after years of experience. He makes Wash’s coffee for him. He let’s Wash come to him first, if he wants to talk. He makes sure his steps are loud, that he never catches the former Freelancer by surprise, and before anything tactile, he asks, just to make sure.

 

Wash usually says yes. On bad days, him and Tucker can be found lying on the couch, Tucker’s arm over Wash’s shoulder, a worn blue blanket draped over them. Junior often joins them on those days, sitting on the nearby chair and putting on a bad movie they’ve watched before. They let Wash grumble and nitpick at every scene, and almost always by the end of it, he’s fast asleep on Tucker’s chest. 

 

It’s not always without incident of course. Sometimes they fight and almost always one of them realizes their being a jackass and apologizes first. Sometimes Wash wakes up from those naps on the couch screaming. But they get through.

 

Tucker’s bad days are different, subtle, almost impossible to notice unless you’re looking for them. He sleeps the normal amount, he makes breakfast as usual, he makes bad jokes  whenever he can slide one in. To most, he looks cheerful. 

 

It’s the cheerfulness that gives him away to those who know him. Tucker’s cheerfulness is never like this, bright, open, and constant. That’s Donut type of cheerfulness; Tucker’s cheerfulness is fine with sitting in the silence, just taking everything in. 

 

It’s his fake cheer never shuts up. It’s words after words, never allowing silence for more than a minute. So none of the thoughts that are screaming inside his brain get out.

 

Wash doesn’t notice that Tucker has these kind of bad days until two months after Epsilon. He’s not sure he’ll ever fully forgive himself for not noticing. So he notices now. And when Junior leaves for school, giving Wash a knowing nod (because kids know, they always know, no matter how hard you try to hide it from them) Wash walks up to Tucker, wraps him in a hug that says “you can stop pretending.” 

 

After that, Tucker’s bad days take a different turn, after he’s told Wash everything he was trying so desperately to hide. All the energy leaves his body, unable to do anything but pretend and it takes everything he has not to lie on the couch and not move. Wash keeps him busy these days, not so busy he can’t catch his breath, but busy enough that the worst thoughts can’t keep purchase for long. They do things Tucker likes, visit people he has nightmares about, makes plans to get takeout instead of cooking. When Junior comes home, it’s almost always with an array of stories he has to tell his father  _ right now, _ and neither Wash nor Tucker protest as he launches into a tale he’s probably prepared all day.

 

Like Wash’s, these days are also not always without incident. Even with Tucker’s energy sucked dry, they do sometimes manage to bicker, fights they will also rush to apologize for when they stop being idiots. Some days, the really bad ones, Wash’s attempts to get Tucker off the couch are useless, and he just sits there with him, Tucker’s head in his lap, drinking his coffee, and doing his work from home. But they get through. 

 

It’s not easy. Somedays, once or twice out of they year, they’ll both have a bad day, and they have to adapt to work around each other’s ghosts. And it’s hard, God it’s hard, those days they both feel like crap and want to do nothing more than scream. But they get through.

  
They always do.


End file.
